


Lilacs

by holtcest



Series: Garden of Realization [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, F/M, Incest, Sam's POV, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 11:02:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16157690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holtcest/pseuds/holtcest
Summary: Sam had been overjoyed when they found out they’d be having a second child.





	Lilacs

Sam had been overjoyed when they found out they’d be having a second child.

Colleen was as glowing and beautiful as she’d been when she was carrying Matt, holding the extra weight with grace and a lot more assuredness this time around. Matt follows her everywhere she goes, and at first, this was cute and charming to Sam; his young son being excited about a new family member is different than what parenting forums and books told him would happen. Instead of angry or upset that a baby was coming, he was  _ecstatic,_ wanted to be involved the whole way and was constantly asking questions. ‘ _I expected nothing less from him_ ,’ is what he thinks now, but later on he’s not too sure why he was so attached so young.

Sam picks Matt up from preschool, lets him blabber on and on about how boring he thinks things are now, how excited he is for the baby to come home. They eat snacks at home and start on Matt’s worksheets; Colleen double checks her overnight bag that she leaves by the door. When their bundle of joy is born, and Matt cradles her close ( _so much love glistens in his eyes_ ), he ignores the weird thoughts that drift through his mind. Matt is too young to think so damningly, so... disgustingly. So he just smiles and hugs his wife, ruffle’s Matt’s hair, and lets him hold onto Katie until the baby girl needs to eat.

* * *

 

He doesn’t see as much of them, as they grow and change. 

The Garrison demands most of his attention, swindles him away from his family, where he can keep tabs on them, and maybe he misses something, but they’re just so  _close_  whenever he sees them. Whether they’re curled up on the couch watching a movie, or pressed shoulder-to-shoulder working on one of the many puzzles they’ve bought for the kids over the years, they’re always just erring on the side of uncomfortably close. Matt’s tenth is coming up, and he thinks to pull him aside and ask him what he wants, and all the boy can manage to say is, while looking distantly to where Katie plays in the yard:

“I already have all that I want.”

* * *

 

It’s summer, the heat is beating down on the family of four as they walk onto the beach.

Hot sand sticks to the sweat of their skin, but the kids don’t care as they sprint for the shoreline. Colleen has to call them back for sunscreen while Sam sets up the umbrella, lays down the blanket and goes back to the car to get the cooler and chairs. They weight heavy on his back, strains his arms just a bit as he trudges through the sand back to their central spot on the beach, and watches as Matt coats his hands in sunscreen ( _he’s already a little pink),_ before taking care to rub it into Katie’s skin. The boy ( _can he even call him that at fourteen?_ ) lingers on her shoulders, makes delicate patterns into her skin with the cream while she laughs, and Sam furrows his brows behind his sunglasses.

“Leave them be,” Colleen mutters, tapping him with the bottle of sunscreen until he takes it from her. She doesn’t say anything more, and Sam playfully squirts the cold cream onto her back while she squeaks. He forgets about the way their kids looked, how Matt took too long to cover Katie’s skin in sunscreen, the looks on both their faces the entire time. 

* * *

 

Years down the line, after Matt’s accepted into the Garrison, things don’t change.

Sometimes, in the dead of night, Sam hears whispers from down the hall. Nothing he can make out through the walls, but consistent every night and spoken with tones of urgency. The first few times he can write it off as Katie’s chronic nightmares having a bad bout, but when its been over a month of nightly whispers plaguing his mind, he can’t continue to ignore it. Tip-toeing out into the hall ( _avoiding the floorboards that he know creak_ ), he presses his ear to the door of Matt’s room, listens for a few moments to see what exactly they were doing in there. Working on projects, perhaps? Studying? He knew both of his kids were braniacs who worked best sleep-deprived, but they really need to take their health into account--

“ _Katie,_ ”

Sam feels his stomach drop.

* * *

 

He can’t bring himself to say anything to his wife.

How could he? What would he even say? Deciding to pull Matt aside after supper, he sits him down in his office and bridges his fingers. Matt looks nervous ( _rightfully so_ ) as he thinks of what to say; what he  _could_  say. How to let Matt know that he  _knows_ , without saying too much (a _ll he can hear is the sound of skin on skin echoing in his head, something he wants to deny as long as he’s able_ ), and it takes him a few minutes of staring at Matt while his son averts his eyes. Like he knew he did something wrong, or, at the very least, that he knew he was potentially  _caught_. His breath hitches when Sam opens his mouth to tell him off, but all that comes out is a sighed out, irate:

“Stop letting Katie sleep in your room.”

* * *

 

Some days, he watches from a distance, tries to figure out if his suspicions are correct.

They whisper to each other over Katie’s homework, Matt’s hand a constant presence on her shoulder, firm and reassuring. Both Sam and Colleen had thought this cute once upon a time, hadn’t they? Didn’t they themselves encourage this closeness between their only children, helped them rely on each other instead of forcing them to make new friends? Guilt swims in his gut while he watches Matt tuck some of Katie’s hair behind her ear, and it doesn’t go away, not even when he retreats to his office to do Garrison paperwork. The Kerberos Mission applications were due soon, and Matt was freshly graduated-- maybe some distance between the two of them would do them good.

And he knows Matt can’t resist the temptation of discovery.

* * *

 

Sam Holt has many regrets.

Never before had they sprang from his line of work; in the name of scientific discovery, he would do nearly anything. But being abducted by aliens? That was never part of his career plan, his  _life_  plan. The rest of his family was sitting safe on Earth, and they might not even  _ever know the truth._ Matt sits next to him, curled up in on himself, and Sam feels like the worst father in the world. What comforts could he offer his son now, stranded-- no,  _imprisoned_ in an alien ship, forced to fight? They only had each other now. And sometimes, in the dead of night, Matt curls up against his side, cries and cries and  _cries_  into his shirt, soaked through with sweat and blood and dirt, for the life they can never return to. Matt tells him that when he said he wanted to meet aliens, this isn’t what he meant. All Sam can do is rub his back, and tell him that at least they have each other, and Matt sobs harder.

It’s hard to hear it.

Time is hard to tell in the cells, between feedings and fights and the occasional shower, but it had to be weeks before they were told what would happen to them. Matt would go into the gladiator area with Shiro, and Sam would be carted away to a scientific work camp light years away from his son. Matt clutches his shirt, and they weep until late into that day, until Sam’s eyes are heavy with the need to sleep. Matt tells him that he misses Colleen, his home, the Garrison. 

“But most of all,” he says, “I miss Katie.”

* * *

 

The work camp is just as bad as the cell, plus high levels of exhaustion to top off the awful cake. Sam spends most of his time in a lab, working on engines with specs he never dreamed were even close to possible, fixing broken ships and updating computer software. If he only focuses on the work, ignores his homesickness, he can make the most of it-- but the days drag on and on, and he’s not sure how long he’s there before someone pulls him aside to put him in cuffs. When prompted about what he did wrong ( _old scars from beatings long past still fresh in his mind_ ), the guard tells him that he’s become part of the main show, now. Told to show Emperor Zarkon respect by keeping his mouth shut.

He’s not sure what he thought the esteemed Emperor would look like, but the man looks like a husk. 

Like some form of old horror movie effects and sci-fi concepts mixed in an unholy matrimony, Zarkon gestures to him, and a few other aliens heft him into a ship, scan him with a device he doesn’t recognize, test out a hologram that perfectly resembles Sam in every way. The only way you could tell that it wasn’t him was the barely-there flicker of it, the slight glow. It’s unsettling to see himself standing stock still, staring ahead but not blinking. The trip feels short ( _even though he’s slept at least twice_ ), and when they arrive he doesn’t even get to go out with them. 

There’s the boom of Zarkon’s voice, a demand he can’t quite hear, and then the sound of gunfire. 

* * *

 

After his rescue (the feel of Katie clinging tightly to him makes his mind ease), he spends time wandering the Castle of Lions. It’s easy to get lost the first few days, but he gets used to it, even as he’s told they’re preparing a ship for him to return to Earth in. Not that he doesn’t want to go home; but there’s no way he’ll be getting any downtime at all when he does. So he wastes hours exploring abandoned rooms, talking to Coran occasionally over the intercoms, but stopping short when he hears a near-familiar noise coming from one of the rooms down the hall. The door’s open, slid three-quarters of the way and although its dark, he can see the two figures pressed against each other in the shadows. 

Sam clenches his jaw, keeps moving forward (ignores the sick twist his stomach gives as it rolls) until he’s just outside the room, able to hear them crystal clear.

“Shut the door, Matt, what if someone--  _ah, fuck--_ what if someone hears us?”

Matt’s got a hand down her shorts ( _the fabric worn after a few years of constant use_ ), his mouth latched to her throat and Sam wants to demand he stop; but Katie makes this keening  _whine_  when Matt flicks his wrist, and Sam bites his tongue, keeping just out of sight. 

“Especially now that  _dad’s_  on the ship, we could get  _caught--”_ Katie continues, even though her voice is now more akin to a whine and less like real speech.

“He won’t find out, Katie. And even if he did,” Matt hums against her skin, stilling his hand and Sam watches as Katie rolls her hips into his palm, irritated. “I’d made sure he never told  _anyone_ , okay? I promised I’d keep you  _safe_ , right, baby?”

Sam doesn’t know if that’s a threat of violence or an empty reassurance, but he doesn’t stick around to find out. Instead he calmly ( _as calmly as he can when he can hear how Katie cries out her brother’s name down the hall_ ) keeps walking, ignoring the  _sounds_ , the disgusting coupling that his children partake in, drift further and further from mind. Until they stop bouncing between his ears, played in high definition surround sound. Until he can pretend he never heard it in the first place, and believe that his children are as pure as they should be with each other.

He doesn’t say anything to them when he leaves, just hugs them goodbye and ignores the hickey he can spot just under Katie’s collar.

* * *

 

He doesn’t mention it when he gets back to Earth. 

Won’t say a thing to Colleen; she doesn’t need to know that he’s caught their children ( _too smart for their own good, too reckless_ ) with their pants down, knocking knees in an alien’s ship some million light years away from here. Sam just works, divulges his knowledge of the Galra forces, their methodology, their ideals. How they’re relentless, brutal, determined to win at any cost. 

“Victory or death,” he tells them, watches their faces pale ( _and he can’t think of how his children are out there, fighting in the front lines, risking everything for these people_ ). “That is the Galra way.”

* * *

 

Matt contacts them not even a year down the line. 

He tells them over a distant radio signal that Voltron has vanished, simply slipped out of existence along with the only hope of peace between the Galra and the universe. Dead and gone, he says, and his voice is tight and strained, as if just by thinking this he’s accepting the worst. The rebels had to go underground, had to spend all their energy hiding and squirreling refugees away to safety, and he tells Sam to cut the feed asking for Voltron’s help. When Sam makes to argue, Matt cuts him off and snaps at him, tells him to just  _listen_  and cut it off. He says that they’re just putting themselves at risk, and if things ever become safe again then he’ll be in contact.

“Matt--”

“I’m sorry. I love you.”

* * *

 

It’s another four before Sam sees his daughter rushing over to greet them.

She throws herself at Colleen, and it warms his heart because even though they held out hope that Voltron would return to them, knowing that it was more likely that one of his children was dead... he only snaps out of his thoughts when Katie’s got her arms slung around his middle, her face stuffed into his chest and a sob shaking her shoulders. He hugs back ( _she feels so much smaller than he remembers_ ), pulls Colleen into a group hug, too. For a few glorious weeks, he forgets the secrets he knows about Katie and Matt, of what he heard and saw. He just works alongside his daughter, innovating and creating like he once hoped to do with her when she too would join the Garrison. 

Its such a long-forgotten dream to remember now. They work well together, and he thinks of bringing up Matt, but the words get caught in his throat and he can’t bring himself to say anything. Instead they keep working, and he gets acquainted with her fellow Paladins and discuss their plans of attack. It’s tiring work, but there’s no other choice. 

There’s no time for leisure in times of war.

* * *

 

Seeing Katie get pulled out of her Lion-- it broke his heart.

She was so slight, crumbled in on herself and hardly breathing, and the paramedics on site rush her back to the Garrison. Sam and Colleen hardly have time to assess the damage before they’re carted to the waiting room, anxiety so thick in the air you can practically see it. He holds his wife’s hand, squeezes it, tries to think about happier things. They’ve won for now, there shouldn’t be another attack for a long while, and Katie will be safe. She... she has to be, right? His youngest child-- imagining her as anything but the bubbling spitfire she’s become is impossible for him. 

Katie recovers, sleeps all day, and Sam spends more and more time away, helping the rescue efforts and food rationing, getting people settled in. When the ships arrive, with refugee aliens pouring in by droves, he hardly notices when Matt runs over to them, another alien in tow, and throws himself into Colleen’s arms. Sam firmly grips his shoulder, and like a child, Matt sniffles and pulls him into it, too. His hair is long and unruly now, eyebags under his eyes heavy, and he asks with fading hope how they managed to live.

“Voltron came back.”

* * *

 

The room is dark, and quiet, but Colleen isn’t beside him anymore.

He reaches for her, to maybe feel out where she was, but the sheets were pulled back and still held some vague amount of her heat. With a frown, he gets out of bed, slides into his slippers and heads out to find her. Maybe she had gotten worried about Katie again ( _the image of his wife bent over her daughter’s hospital bed, weeping openly, comes to mind_ ) and needed to see she was safe to be certain she can sleep easy? He trails quietly down the hall, until he sees Colleen slumped against a wall with a look of abject horror painted into her features. 

He only has to listen for a moment before he understands what she’s witnessed.

Sam grabs her arm, ignores the heady moaning he can hear coming from his daughter’s recovery room, pulls her back down the hall towards their bedroom. She’s crying,  _shaking_  in his grip, and he turns to see the look of _disgust_ , of heartbreak, of everything that he’s trained himself to disregard. The guilt hits him full force-- he _knew_ but didn't do anything to stop it, hardly even  _tried_ , and what kind of father is he to allow this vulgarity to continue? Vaguely, Sam can hear Katie’s voice from down the hallway.

“Close the  _door_ , Matt--!”


End file.
